Why Did Ripley not Shoot the Queen in Aliens?

[Vermillion]

This has always bugged me. 

Why did she not go all "Inglorious Basterds" on the Stationary queen in her egg chamber?

Surely, wasting the queen's face with a pulse rifle clip would of made Ripley happy?

http://youtu.be/WDv-n_aMVd8

[whiterabbit]

Well first things first, the immediate treat was the aliens around her and then it was the eggs and in fact she did go all out on the Queen's egg maker probably thinking it was a part of her. Plus you gotta figure shooting something that's above you and filled with acid blood might not be the smartest thing to do. However she did leave a parting gift of grenades that she may have assumed would have blown the queen to shit. Then she noticed she was out of ammo.

[HuDaFuK]

She unloaded a bunch of HE frag grenades into her abdomen and blew her open. I guess she figured that would kill her.

[Xenomorphine]

Yeah, all her emotional trauma and nightmares were based on the eggs, themselves. She had no idea the Queen could detach and probably assumed she would die in the explosion. She wanted to personally destroy the eggs as a personal vendetta.

She also tossed ammunition into the flames, knowing they would effectively be small explosives.

[Vermillion]

Yeah, but most things die when you shoot it in the face.
Just ask Hicks and Vasquez.

Just kill it.  Then the eggs and the drones.

Oh well. It's only a movie and they needed a climax.

[whiterabbit]

She should have carried some ammo clips. I mean she had pockets right?

[HuDaFuK]

Just kill it.  Then the eggs and the drones.

The eggs and the drones were actively coming after her at that point, the queen wasn't.

And again, Ripley blew open the queen's egg sac with a grenade launcher. It's not unreasonable for her to assume that'll end it. If you mash open a termite queen's abdomen, I'm pretty sure it'll die. Then she lobbed a bandoleer of grenades into the inferno for good measure.

Rips had no way of knowing the queen could shed her egg sac and keep on truckin'. It's not like she blasted everything in the room around her but just left the queen be to come back at her. What we see is pretty reasonable. I'd be up for high-tailing it instead of sticking around to make sure the job's done.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

The eggs and the drones were actively coming after her at that point, the queen wasn't.

The eggs were actively coming after her? 

[HuDaFuK]

Figure of speech

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Could those eggs actually be more mobile than we thought? One of them certainly managed to sneak aboard the Sulaco! 

[Vermillion]

But one pulse rifle burst to the aliens whiny mouth would of left Bishop in one piece. 

[HuDaFuK]

Could those eggs actually be more mobile than we thought? One of them certainly managed to sneak aboard the Sulaco! 

*ba-dum tish*

But one pulse rifle burst to the aliens whiny mouth would of left Bishop in one piece.

The giant, swollen, thirty foot-long abdomen's a more obvious target, and she dealt with that. Like I've said numerous times, there's no reason for Ripley to think that isn't going to be fatal. It accounts for more than three quarters of the queen's body mass.

[Xenomorphine]

The eggs were actively coming after her?

At least one of them did hatch, so... Yeah.

[Vermillion]

I'll pretend the Queen is like a chicken with its head cut off then.

Kill brain.  Kill living thing. 

Simple anatomy.

[THE CITY HUNTER]

Friendly fire?